"Oh! I won't go out. I promise you I won't," he said with an idiotic stare. "I only went to Pont Street because I wanted to know if you were all right."
"And incidentally you wanted money!" laughed the other. "Well, you had it--you have it again now. Remain quiet and content. I'm busy. I've got lots of things to look after. I've probably got to go away, but I'll see you have money to go on with all right."
"Very well," said the strange man. "This place is better than Hammersmith, living in a locked room for weeks and months, nobody to see, and only breathing the fresh air on the roof when everybody had gone to bed."
"But you had your work--your scientific work in bacteriology! You can't live without your work!"
"Ah, yes. I had my work. But, oh! it was so lonely--so very lonely."
"You're not lonely here," said Boyne cheerfully. "So don't bother. Take your ease, and make the best of it. You're in a house which shelters people like yourself. Here everyone keeps a still tongue--and nobody knows about little Maggie."
The curious man with the triangular face blinked across at Boyne--and remained silent for several moments.
"Little Maggie!" he gasped at last. "Little Maggie! Ah! I remember. I----"
Again he paused. Then glaring into Boyne's face with a strange wild expression, he said:
"You! Why--why you're--you're really Willie Wisden!"
"Of course I am," laughed Boyne. "But keep cool, Lionel, old chap, or you'll have one of those nasty attacks of yours coming on again. Ta-ta! I'll come back very soon," he said, and turning he left the room and descended the stairs.
"Perhaps I'll come back," he muttered to himself. "But I do not think so! The idiot has served me well, and I've got the tubes. That is all I want--at present!"
And a moment later he was walking in the darkness through Harpur Street.
Ten days more had passed. Poor Mrs. Morrison had been buried at Brookwood, her sister and several relatives being among the mourners.
Notice had been given through a solicitor to the insurance company of the assignment of the policy for ten thousand pounds to Mrs. Braybourne. The solicitor, a perfectly respectable man practising in the City, had received a call from Mrs. Braybourne of Pont Street, and she had handed him the policy and the assignment. Boyne had first made secret inquiries regarding the unsuspecting lawyer, and found him to be a man with a very high reputation in his profession.